,
2,000,000 of Whiteley's "Champion" machines have been made in Springfield,
and have sold at a gain of $18,000,000.

As the millions came pouring in so fast, Whiteley's head was turned and he
began to run amuck. He cut loose from Warder and from his own partners,
Fassler and Kelly, opened war on the Knights of Labour, built the biggest
reaper factory in the world, became a railroad president, helped to
corner the Chicago wheat market, backed the "Strasburg Clock"--an absurd
self-binder that was as big as a pipe-organ--and came crashing down in a
failure that jarred the farming world from end to end.

Whiteley lost millions in this crash--and with comparative indifference.
It was never the profits that he fought for. At heart he was a sportsman
rather than a money-maker. He craved the excitement of the race itself
more than the prizes. To win--that was the ambition of his life. And he
did not shrink from spectacular methods to accomplish his ambition.

For instance, nothing less would satisfy him, when he exhibited at the
Philadelphia Centennial, than a quarter-sized reaper, made daintily of
rosewood and gold. This brought him so sudden a rush of orders from the
East that in one day of the following year he sent seventy loaded cars to
Baltimore. With flags flying and brass bands playing, these cars rolled
off, with orders to travel only by daylight. When they arrived in
Harrisburg, running in three sections, they caught the eye of a railroad
superintendent named McCrea--who is now, by the way, president of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. McCrea saw a chance to advertise his railway as
well as Whiteley's reapers, so he linked the seventy cars together into
one three-quarter-mile train, put his biggest engine at the front, and
sent the gaudy caravan on its way.

Whiteley never knew how to be commonplace, even in the smallest matters.
Wherever he went, his trail was marked by stories of his exploits and his
oddities. How he organised the famous "White Plug Hat Brigade" in the
Blaine campaign--how he made a twelve-hour speech to help "Mother" Stewart
close up the saloons of Springfield--how he found a Springfield farmer
using a McCormick reaper, gave him a Whiteley reaper in its place, and
flung the rival machine upon the junk-pile, as a sign that he was the
monarch of Ohio--how he gathered up a peck of pies after a field test
dinner, put them in a sack, and ate nothing but pies for half a week--such
is the sort of anecdotes